The Real Me
by Lizwontcry
Summary: Carrie goes through some of her darkest days, but comes out of the haze to find the sun. Major spoilers for the movie!


**I've never written for SATC before, but this was for a contest on livejournal called Lastficstanding. This is the entry that got me booted out of the contest, but I still like it! Let me know if you do, too.**

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I was heartbroken.

No, not heartbroken. That word doesn't describe what I was feeling when I realized the wedding wasn't going to happen; that he just couldn't do it. "Heartbroken" wasn't brutal enough. No, I was...hell, I'm a writer and I can't even come up with something better than heartbroken.

I put so much of myself and my ideas and my wishes and hopes and dreams into Big that I didn't know who I was without him. I was Carrie Bradshaw still, sure. I was a writer. I was a best friend to three amazing women. I was someone who spends a whole paycheck on shoes and goes without dinner for 2 weeks instead. I'm someone who enjoys a nice, carefree night at a Manhattan club, drinking Cosmos with my girlfriends until closing time. That was,_ is_, me, before and after Big came into my life. So why did I feel like I lost everything when I lost him?

Miranda told me once that she admired me. I couldn't believe it at first--Miranda, a hot-shot lawyer with balls of steel, jealous of me? We don't even compare. I told her that and she shook her head.

"I know I have certain things in my life some people might desire," she'd said. "And so do you. I mean, there are women in this world that would literally kill to have the entire contents of your closet."

I laughed even though I knew she probably wasn't kidding. My closet was quite impressive.

"But you really throw yourself into relationships. You don't care that it might not end well. You take the risk, you put yourself out there, and I will never stop admiring you for that. Sure, I pity you, too, but really...Carrie, I'd love to be able to do that. I've just been screwed over way too many times."

Yeah, tell me about it. Miranda and I both had our share of relationship failures, but she built an icy exterior around her heart while I never did. And then Big broke everything, and I didn't even see it coming. I should have known. What was I expecting when I made our wedding more about the spectacle than anything else? Me and Big, that's all that mattered. I lost sight of that, so he lost sight of us.

I wanted to be like Miranda. I wanted to close myself off and focus on my career, my books, instead of men. I wanted to be like Samantha, who knows exactly what she wants, to the extent of breaking up a perfectly happy relationship with Smith so she could finally be herself again. But most of all, I wanted to be like Charlotte. Strong, feminine, loved, happy Charlotte. She was married with an adopted daughter, a new baby on the way, and the perfect husband. And when I got to feeling like that, I was so disgusted with myself. When did I become this silly little girl that only cared about finding the perfect man?

I didn't want the perfect man. I just wanted Big. But he took that option away from me, so I moved on. I didn't want to. I tried not to. But I had to, so eventually I did.

Half a year. Half a year went by between the missed wedding that changed everything and the chance meeting that changed everything. In that time I remembered everything about myself that I forgot. Not only am I a writer, a friend, a fashionista, a club hopper. I am creative. I am interesting and intriguing. I am clever, dangerous, thoughtful, and cunning. I was all of these things when I was with Big, of course, but it was so easy to forget about them and focus on him that I let it all slip away.

My new assistant, Louise, taught me that I can find myself even when I'm more lost than I've ever been. I also learned from her that I can be giving, warm, receptive…traits I never think about when I'm with the other girls because we're so used to each other that those characteristics tend to go unnoticed. Louise brought them out of me again, and it was so nice to remember that I'm not entirely selfish and boy-crazy--I care deeply about my friends and would do anything to make them happy.

So before our ill-fated apartment (penthouse, really) sold to its new owners, I went back there to retrieve the Manolos I never had the chance to wear from the closet I never had the chance to enjoy. And there he was. I hadn't seen him in nearly 6 months, the longest we'd gone without seeing each other in more than 10 years. He looked good, and then he looked at me and I looked at him. I knew he saw me--the real me. He saw the version of me that I reclaimed for myseIf, me without him. And when I saw myself in his eyes, I knew it would be okay. I knew we could be together without losing ourselves. We could finally find what was lost, and make it ours again.

And after we made love, and after he got down on one knee to give me the proposal I felt I always deserved, I realized that even though I was fine by myself, and always would be…he gave me a little something extra. He gave me that extra spark; the fuel to make things even better. I couldn't wait to start living the rest of my life with him and the way he made me feel. And now I am Carrie Bradshaw--a writer, a friend, a fashionista, a club hopper, and a wife. And I'll never be heartbroken again.


End file.
